She turned away and he buttoned up his shirt, tucked it in, shrugged on his jacket and fell in step with her, taking her around the waist. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
She kissed his chest. “I’ll only be ten minutes.”
“Not one minute. Not without me.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder, loving his unyielding...everything. There was no point in arguing. This man got what he wanted. Period. And she was what he wanted now. Who was she to stand in the way of his desires?
Sighing her pleasure, she still had to point out the obvious. “Though I never found photos of you, I can’t say I looked very hard. What if someone out there did and recognizes you? Your plan to keep stirring the marketing scene into butter with your elusiveness will come to an abrupt end.”
“I’ll be worth not letting you out of my sight.”
Delight heightening, she teased, “But if people recognize you, you’ll be swamped. This might postpone our...plans.”
“If I suspect it will, I’ll go on a rampage and chase everybody out.” He pressed an openmouthed kiss on her lips. “Now quit stalling.”
Laughing, tucked into his side, she walked out of the study where her life had changed forever, feeling she was stepping out into a new universe filled with endless possibility. A universe with him at its center.
For however long she had with him.
* * *
Walking back to the ballroom with Eliana, Rafael realized how far away his study was. When he’d been carrying her there, it had only felt ten paces away.
“This place is amazing.”
He looked down at the magnificent human flower nestled into his side. He felt as if her flesh was an extension of his, her smile and voice and eyes the fuel of his heartbeats. The past hours had been the most incredible, ecstatic stretch of life he’d ever had.
She was looking around as she strode by his side, as if it was the first time she’d seen the place. It was. She’d had eyes only for him on her first passage through it.
He nuzzled her cheek, truly unable to stop touching her. “It was a mansion that was converted into a boutique hotel. I was driving down the coast when I saw it and decided to spend the night. The next day, I bought it. I refurbished it but preserved most of what I liked about it in the first place.”
Her eyes poured that all-out appreciation over him, not attempting to temper it or to hide how much she loved being with him. “It must have tremendous tourist appeal, especially in its current lavish condition.”
“I didn’t buy it for commercial purposes.”
Her eyes widened. “You plan to live here?”
In the space of a heartbeat, he saw a whole lifetime in which he did—with her. But something stopped him from sharing the vision when so far he’d been telling her everything as it occurred to him. Probably out of fear he’d alarm her, as he had when he’d made those business offers. It had been only then that she’d resisted him. He wouldn’t risk another premature move.
“I haven’t thought about it.” He’d only had revenge on his mind since he’d come to Brazil. Until he’d seen her. Now anything but her felt inconsequential. “I always acquire whatever my gut tells me to, then decide what to do with my acquisitions later. This place presented the best setting for this ball. But though I’m used to living in spacious, isolated places, this mansion might be too much for only me.”
“You have no one to share the place with...?” She stopped, mortification suddenly flooding her gaze, stiffening her body. “It didn’t even occur to me to ask if you have a—a family.”
Thanks to Ferreira, he no longer did.
But that wasn’t the family she was asking about. She was belatedly horrified at almost sleeping with a man who might turn out to be married.
Before entering the ballroom, he took her by the shoulders. “Do I transmit sleazy cheater vibes to you?”
That delightful flush flamed across her cheekbones as her eyes escaped his rebuking ones. “You know what vibes you transmit to me. The kind that short-circuit my mind.”
He raised her face to his, felt a pang at the uncertain vulnerability in her eyes. Hugging her fiercely, he knew he’d do anything to never see that look in her eyes again.
“Even short-circuiting, you pegged me right in every way. I have no one, minha beleza. I’m totally free to worship you. As I will. From now on.”
Her eyes cleared at once. And she didn’t question his “from now on” statement the way she had when he’d proposed nightly meetings before. He was grateful because he no longer considered those enough. He now realized what it meant to want someone constantly in his life. It was how he wanted her.
He realized something else: What he saw in those enchanting eyes shouldn’t be there, according to logic and the too-limited time they’d had together. But it had been there from the start, was now a blaze that fired his blood, eradicated the cold in the recesses of his heart. Trust. Not limited to her belief in her safety with him, and not the kind he’d seen in his brothers’ eyes. This was unique. All hers. And all-out. In him.